Alabaster Bay

The winds shifted southwesterly,  causing us to move Mahi south along the island of Eleuthra to seek a better anchorage for the new conditions.  We found Alabaster Bay (formerly Receiver Bay when the United States had a naval presence here) to be another tranquil place to anchor- a very large bay with James Cistern Cay at the north of the bay and a sheltered point at the south end, where we anchored.

Here is an aerial view of southern part of Alabaster Bay from an old 1984 chart book we have.  We anchored in the blue sandy waters just off the shallow beach.

The waters here were spectacular.  This image of Ethan playing in the dinghy shows you the colors from a land view:

We decided to rent a car so we could travel and see parts of Eleuthra otherwise hard to see via sailboat.  On the Atlantic side, we visited a remote pink sandy beach off the ruins of a large US naval base that shut down decades ago.

This was a great beach combing beach, but also a reminder of how much plastic trash travels to Eleuthra from countries across the Atlantic Ocean. Floating plastic items travel thousand of miles to disrupt the beauty of a distant shore.  No picture of the trash,  however, the pink tinged sand along most of Eleuthra is unique to this section of the Bahamas.

We kept the rental car a couple of days, and would travel up and down the island visiting restaurants, farms, and Governor’s Harbour to provision.  We even pulled out our inflatable kayak so I could take Ethan to play with local children while I searched for shells.

Alabaster Bay was a fabulous stop for us.  We knew we needed to head south to Rock Sound, our last anchorage in Eleuthra.  This was about a half day sail for us.  All-in-all, we enjoyed our time in this lovely bay.